Sunday 22 January 2012

A Highland Fling...

After travelling for the last couple of weeks for work, on Friday night I was looking forward to a quiet weekend, catching up on a few chores and squeezing in a bit of chilling out. But in actual fact, Saturday became one of those days that kept unraveling and unfolding as the day progressed. 

After a slight over-sleep (meaning no chores pre-departure), a planned catch up with A-down-the-hill prior to a regular appointment at the hairdressers developed into somewhat of a larger day and after an impromptu movie matinee (Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows if you must know, and yes it was great!) I found myself at a Ceilidh.

'A what?!' I hear you say.

A Ceilidh.

A Ceilidh, pronounced 'kay-lee', is a traditional Scottish knees up, comprised of kilts, whisky and haggis. But mainly, it is about dancing, informal, fast-and-furious, 'catch your breath between sets' kind of dancing. So it's just as well I had come completely unprepared for a night out - flat boots, jeans, long sleeved t-shirt and not a scrap of make-up - because before long, I was sweaty and 'unkempt', and absolutely loving it!

We arrived with A-down-the-hill's Scottish contingent (McHubster is from north of the border you see), snaffled a table and the boys went off to queue for drinks and a spot of haggis. I had grand intentions getting my vegetarian haggis later in the evening but, well, I got rather busy. You see, the music started and the caller invited everyone to take the floor. After a walk through of the dance - usually comprised of a series of steps set to 16 bars which is then just repeated - we were off. And that's pretty much the way the night went...all night.

The first dance was The Gay Gordons (don't ask!) and then a little into the second dance, I was delighted to find I had just renewed my acquaintance with The Virginia Reel, a dance I learnt in primary school.

Three and half hours flew by. There was The Dashing White Sergeant, Strip The Willow, The Flying Scotsman, The Canadian Barndance, The Eightsome Reel and a few that we didn't catch the name of, made stuff up (because we had no idea what we were doing) and had a laugh anyway. The haggis was piped in (and I do mean bagpiped) half way through the evening and Burns' Address To A Haggis read with due ceremony, much theatre and sense of occasion (for those of you who don't know, Burns' Night falls this Wednesday on January 25th).

It was a fantastic night - young and old alike took the floor and it was a refreshing change to see the guys itching to get onto the dance floor to strut their stuff. There was a sense of joyful abandon in the hall - maybe the flow of whisky helped a little - but this was just a great, old-fashioned knees up and the best thing to do was leap off the deep end and give it a whirl.

If you are interested in finding out more you can click here for upcoming ceilidhs in London and here if you feel you really must swot up on a few of the steps.

But there's really no need...sometimes a little improv. makes the best fun of all!

2 comments:

Alien said...

. . there was a time when soldiers of Highland Regiments were given the choice between PE and Highland Dance. Shows how energetic it was and how seriously it was taken.

Unknown said...

Ha! There was a semi serious discussion around ceilidh as a weight loss strategy...